Animals

Growing up, we lived in a dry area and so I’d never been exposed to leeches. Even the dams that were close by only held frogs, tadpoles and the occasional snake.

This meant that when I went away to “Old Macdonald’s Farm” with my grandmother, I was completely unprepared for the horror that was about to befall us.

Old Macdonald’s Farm was a B&B type thing, with cabins on site, animals and various fun things to do. At least, that’s how I remember it, but I was only seven at the time and my memory may be flawed.

Honestly, it was great fun. BBQ’s, play equipment, farm animals and plenty to do.

I think this is also where I learned to be very very wary of cows, but I can’t really remember, so I’ve probably blocked that memory out. I can tell you that I have a healthy respect for cows now and that there is no fence between me and that calf, so draw your own conclusions.

On the second morning, we woke up and Nan declared that we were going on the rainforest walk. This was exciting, because I loved bushwalking and rainforests.

It stayed exciting, right up until 15 minutes into the walk when Nan realised that she had a leech attached to her ankle and three more climbing up her boots. She very calmly turned me around and picked another couple of leeches off my trouser legs, while I shook like the girl I was.

We stopped every two minutes on that walk to pick more leeches off our boots and I never really recovered. Despite pulling my socks up over my pants to protect my ankles, I was terrified that a leech would make it’s way up the back of my leg unseen and attach itself somewhere else on my body. Like my armpit.

I can’t really remember, but I suspect a lot of that walk was taking up with me frantically spinning in circles, trying to see my own back.

I’ve never been so grateful to get out of a rainforest before and I still harbour a major distrust of anything that wants to attach to me and suck my blood.

IT’S JUST NOT NATURAL.

And that’s why leeches creep me out.

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When reality sucks, I am very good at escaping into stories. Between this pregnancy destroying my joints, my blood pressure making me want to pass out and my children screaming at me, I can safely say reality sucks, and so I won’t be writing about it.

Instead, you can have some stories from my childhood. I grew up the daughter of two punk/hippy/greenies who built their house out of recycled materials and killed their own meat. My childhood was awesome.

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I remember being about four years old when my father first showed me properly how to skin and gut a chicken. We’d had poultry for as long as I could remember and Dad had always killed them for us when chicken soup was required, or when our young roosters started to crow, but this was the first time I remember him walking me through the steps.

He was good at it and by this stage it didn’t take long for him to finish, lopping off the ends of the wings to dry out for me (I liked feathers) and asking me if I remembered how he’d done it.

Of course I remembered.

Then came the cool bit.

You know how chickens scratch and peck around? Not everything they’re eating is edible. Half of the time they’re picking up small pebbles and stones to store in their gizzard to help grind their food.

My father hunted through the entrails he’d dropped below the dressed out chook and picked up the gizzard.

“Look at this Ronnie” he said, as he took his knife and split it, showing me how poultry actually crush and partially digest their food before it hits their stomach. Inside was a mess of pebbles, rocks, grass and a few tiny squashed grasshoppers. Our hen had been happily pecking in the yard the moment before Dad dispatched her and had obviously found some tasty bits.

He explained how it worked, before rinsing the gizzard free of rocks and rubble in the bucket of water next to us.

Grabbing the hen, he lopped her feet off with the choppy thing he had and with me tailing him, we took the hen inside for Mum to make dinner.

Dad kept the gizzard for us, slicing it finely and frying it with some onion and bacon.

Turns out, gizzards are delicious on toast for lunch. I made Dad save them for me with every bird he killed after that.

Except pigeons.

Pigeon gizzards are too small to bother with.

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When I was little, probably about Amy’s age, I wanted pet mice. I wanted pet mice so badly that it made my teeth ache. The thought of little white furry mice that were MINE was enough to send me into paroxysms of delight.

My parents however, were not impressed with my choice of desired pet, insisting that there were enough bloody mice running around in the roof and why would we want pet white mice? I think they thought that inevitably, my mice would escape and we’d end up with little white mice running riot through the entire property.

They were probably right.

You see though, I wanted a boy and a girl mouse. I wanted to breed them and have babies and set up a large mousey empire. I wanted to be queen of the rodents, wielding the power of life and death with a single decision.

It was a relatively simple idea.

I loved my cat.

My cat loved mice.

Therefore, in my mind, the best thing I could possibly do for my beloved cat was breed her an endless supply of fattened mouse treats.

I think once my parents knew what I wanted to do with the mice, they were impressed with my reasoning and a little concerned with how bloodthirsty I was.

Needless to say, it wasn’t until I was much older that I got pet mice, and I was absolutely forbidden to breed them.

Which is a shame, because I could just see myself with minions and a scepter.

This is not a mouse.

Did your parents destroy your dreams when you were a child?

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